Where’s That Goose?

We’re a little late on the Kerry goose-hunting story, but it’s still worth a mention. Check out RadioBlogger and Wonkette for the details, but the basic story is that Kerry and three friends went on a goose-hunting photo op to show voters that Kerry is a regular guy who likes to shoot birds. Reporters were not allowed to observe the actual hunt, however. What they saw was Kerry and his companions returning through a field. This is the brief interview that ensued:

That’s weird on its face. Kerry is too lazy to carry a goose? But here’s a photo of the four men as they returned from the hunt:
Count the geese: one, two, three. Everyone has one except Kerry. So if “everybody got one,” where is Kerry’s?
Now, there is no shame in going on a hunt and not getting a goose. I am probably the only guy who ever grew up in South Dakota without ever shooting a single bird. My older brother still lives in South Dakota; our home county has more waterfowl hunting licenses per capita that any place in the world. He is more or less a professional hunter, but even he has been known to return from a goose hunt empty-handed.
John Kerry, as far as anyone can tell, hasn’t fired a shotgun at a bird in many years, if ever. While it is possible that he might nevertheless luck out and hit a goose, the odds are heavily against it. Yet there is something about Kerry that requires him to distort reality to fit his own conception of himself: he ran in the Boston marathon; he never falls down while snowboarding unless a Secret Service agent knocks him over; he can’t stand to walk across a patch of tarmac without pulling out a football; when he threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park and it landed half-way to home plate, it was the fault of the National Guardsman who was supposed to catch it, because the Guardsman was nervous; he had the biggest buck in the history of Massachusetts in his sights but didn’t pull the trigger. And now, he shot a goose. Only, where is it?
This would be an alarming personality trait even if Kerry’s fantasies were limited to sporting triumphs. But the Walter Mitty candidate doesn’t stop there. When a candidate for President makes up non-existent secret missions to Cambodia, testifies before Congress of “war crimes” of which, it turns out, he has no knowledge, and fantasizes support from foreign powers which will magically change their perceptions of their own self-interest if only John F. Kerry were President, Walter Mitty is no longer funny.
UPDATE: Reader Tara McKellar points out something I’d missed in the pool report quoted by Wonkette, namely, a claim that a fifth person walked “far ahead” of the main group, carrying a fourth dead goose. If true, that could be the one that Kerry supposedly shot. But if there was such a guy, he was really, really far ahead of the group:
Our friend David Boyd also points out that the New York Times also has video footage of the men emerging from the woods. There is another individual with them at one point, but he doesn’t have a goose.
So if Kerry shot a goose (or, much more likely, someone else shot two), then not only was Kerry “too lazy” to carry a goose, he apparently didn’t want to be anywhere near it.
UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt asks, “How do you ask a goose to be the last goose to die for a campaign stunt? How do you ask a goose to die for a photo op?”